LAHORE, Oct 22: The Punjab NAB filed on Tuesday a reference of Rs410.83 million corruption against a former deputy secretary of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) before the accountability courts registrar.

Chaudhry Muzaffar Ali has been arraigned as accused in the reference which would be forwarded to the accountability court for regular hearing shortly.

The NAB authorities said that the exact liability of the accused in this reference was yet to ascertained because investigations were in progress. Complete details of the irregularities committed by Chaudhry Muzaffar would be submitted in a supplementary reference later.

As alleged by the NAB, the accused facilitated the sale of precious ETPB assets to 16 beneficiaries by declassifying these properties as worthless without obtaining prior permission from the authorities concerned.

The properties were handed over to the beneficiaries shown as benamidars without any legal authority.

It has been further alleged that the accused applied the deputy commissioner’s rates in the sale of six such assets which were below the prevailing market price and thus caused a loss of Rs410.83 million to national exchequer.

According to the reference, ETPB properties at Baidian Road, Motta Singh Bhai Kot, Tulspura, Urdu Bazaar and Kohawa were sold by the accused at lower rates in abuse of his official position.

He has been accused of conducting bogus and closed door auction proceedings regarding the properties of ETPB and disposing of costly assets at extremely lower prices. He has been also accused of handing over ETPB properties to certain benamidars without any lawful authority besides settling certain ejectment cases on his own.

The reference discloses that Muzaffar started his career as a patwari in the revenue department, Lahore, in 1963. He joined the ETPB in 1967 in the same cadre. He was demoted to the rank of tehsildar on charges of misuse of authority and subsequently dismissed from service in March 2002 as result of departmental proceedings against him.